A ubiquitous computing environment, particularly a peer-to-peer computing environment, employs a decentralized architecture by which tasks and resources are partitioned among network nodes. The network nodes, or peers, are both suppliers and consumers of resources, including data and storage. Further, in such an environment, resources are typically exchanged directly over the underlying Internet Protocol (alternatively referred to as “IP”).
Distributed hash tables (alternatively referred to as “DHTs”) are a class of decentralized distributed systems that provide a lookup service for resources in the peer-to-peer computing environment. DHT-based networks utilized for data discovery and management include the Chord project, PAST storage utility, the P-Grid, and the CoopNet content distribution system.